


Fire Meet Gasoline

by losterthanlife



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Season 6 Gallavich Storyline, Angst, Bipolar Disorder, Drug Use, Gallavich, M/M, Mickey and Ian use their fists, Mickey and Ian use their words, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-21 14:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3695147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losterthanlife/pseuds/losterthanlife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s been ninety-four days since the last time Mickey saw Ian – not that he’s been counting – and here the pompous, immature asshole is now, calling him 'Mick' as if it’s only been ninety-four minutes."</p><p>Season 6 Gallavich. As Ian grows, Mickey wilts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hungry for Your Bad Loving

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

**Chapter One – Hungry for Your Bad Loving**

 

Some stupid little bell on the door jingles when Mickey pushes it open. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Sam or Sean or whatever the fuck his name is that owns this piece of shit pie place had installed it just to make this as uncomfortable as fucking possible for Mickey.

He scans the room and spots them in no time, closing the distance between himself and their table in three strides. Svetlana regards him carefully through her eyelashes. “Your face…it is hairy.”

“Well fuck, if pointing out the obvious paid the bills, you’d be able to quit pumping your tits at the Alibi Dairy Farm, wouldn’t you?”

Svetlana doesn’t respond right away, instead shifting her legs under the table to better pull Yevgeny up. She holds him out across the table for Mickey to take, and if it wasn’t for the fact that his pudgy little feet were about to take a bath in Svetlana’s coffee mug, Mickey would have let him dangle there longer.

“It makes your head look like sack of balls,” Svetlana continues, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Mickey glares at her, absently bouncing his knee underneath Yevgeny, who looks up expectantly as a waitress approaches the table. “Something to drink?”

Mickey orders a coffee, and the waitress sets a wrapped set of silverware in front him, where Yevgeny’s meaty fist immediately starts trying to pull it off the table. When the waitress returns, Yevgeny is drooling on a strip of napkin he managed to rip off before Mickey moved the silverware out of his reach, and she sets a steaming piece of something beige that Mickey doesn’t recognize in front of him.

“The fuck is this?” He asks, but she just turns away, rolling her eyes.

“Is apple pie,” Svetlana provides, her fork poised over a piece of cherry pie that was just set in front of her.

“ _Why_ is it apple pie?”

“Because it is apples and pie.” Catching the look on Mickey’s face, she continues, “You tell me, once, you like apple pie. Remember? Born on the four of July, apple pie…”

Mickey rips his silverware open to excuse the fact that he can’t look at her just then. It’s not a memory he’s interested in thinking about. “My birthday’s in August, actually.”

Svetlana licks the cherry filling off her fork, her eyes trained on Yevgeny. “You must be around for baby more.”

 _Here we go again._ “I’m not the one who wouldn’t come back to the fucking house.” He’d told her, months ago now, that his brothers spent too much time away from home to make how much he had to pay for fucking heat worth it, so she and Yevgeny should come back, and Yevgeny could even have Mandy’s old room whenever Svetlana finally decided this “co-sleeping” bullshit was getting old.

“We have home,” Svetlana says, again, because she keeps saying this every time Mickey argues about having to meet them here, there, or everywhere just to see the fucking kid. “Besides, no good for baby to be there.”

“Why the fuck not?” It’s not that Mickey really gives a shit how much time he spends with this squirmy little parasite, but something about the way Svetlana looks at him then lets him know he’s being insulted.

“Seeing father passed out is no good for baby. Better if baby sees father in middle of day, not at night, when father is sober.”

Mickey snorts around a mouthful of pie. Like this Russian bitch knew _anything_ about anything to do with him. He’d woke up that morning and shotgunned two beers, and chased it with a line of coke on the rim of the sink before he hosed himself down to head out to meet them. “Because living above a bar in a fucking milk maid sweatshop is really sheltering him from _so_ much.”

Svetlana opens her mouth to say something else, but at that moment Yevgeny slams the spoon he somehow got ahold of on the table and giggles with glee, and she raises an eyebrow at Mickey. _We are here for him, not this_ , she seems to say, and they eat in silence.

When the waitress drops off the bill, Mickey makes a comment about her not bothering to stop by with a refill on the coffee before snatching it from Svetlana’s hand. “Next time you order me some shitty pie on _my_ dime, at least get it a la mode.”

He slides out of the booth to go pay, Svetlana wrinkling her nose at the French term she’s never heard before.

“Hey, Mickey. How you been?”

Mickey’s breath hitches in throat, his tongue going dry, as Fiona slides into place behind the cash register. “Uhh…fine.” He curses himself for the rigidity he experiences just then, but for once, Fiona actually does something worthwhile and leans forward to take the check and twenty dollar bill from his hand.

“That’s great,” she says with a smile that’s a little too wide. He thinks about telling her to fuck off and walking out the door, because he’ll be damned if he’s going to be pitied. But the waitress didn’t come by once she dropped off the food and she glared at them from the counter when he let Yevgeny suck on the spoon he’d thrown on the floor, so he wasn’t about to leave a decent tip. “Yevgeny’s getting real big, huh?” The cash register dings as the drawer slides open, and Fiona breaks earnest eye contact with him to count out his change.

“I guess,” Mickey responds, lamely.

“You can tell Svetlana I’ve got some clothes of Liam’s he can have, if she wants. V can bring ‘em to her.”

If Mickey was a different person, he might appreciate the fact that Fiona was trying. Because that’s a nice thing to do, objectively – make small talk with your brother’s ex, act like you still care about his life. But Mickey is a Milkovich to the core, so when Fiona holds out his change, he snatches it up and shoots her a pointed look. “Sounds like if you and V want to do something for Svet, _you and V_ can talk to Svet about it and leave me the fuck out of it.”

He spins on his heel then, to toss a buck on the table and storm off, because he’s shaking and there’s some whiskey at home he’d like to burn this experience from his mind with. His foot is halfway off the floor when he pauses, a swath of red hair in the spot where he was sitting last, right next to his fucking coat.

Mickey’s brain drops into mud just then, the specifics of the moment coming to him slowly. He sees Svetlana glance up at him, a cautious expression in her eyes. His head turns toward Mickey then, his fingers clasped around Yevgeny’s sides like the baby is _his_ or something. Ian’s expression is alarmed at first – he’s surprised to see him, so maybe this _wasn’t_ some grand scheme to ruin Mickey’s last shred of dignity. Mickey sees some faint blueish bruising under his right eye, and he swallows hard against the questions he wants to ask him about him.

Ian’s lips twitch, as if he wants to smile but knows better. “Hey, Mick.” He says it quietly, but he might as well have shouted for how deafening he seems.

It’s been ninety-four days since the last time Mickey saw Ian – not that he’s been counting – and here the pompous, immature asshole is now, calling him “Mick” as if it’s only been ninety-four _minutes_. He’s wearing a simple white t-shirt, and there’s a filthy apron tied around his waist. Mickey finally notices the bin of dirty dishes balanced on the edge of the table, and it only seems to occur to Mickey in just that moment that of _course_ Ian still works here.

There’s so many things he thinks he could say just then. _How are you? What happened to you? Are you safe? I miss you. I want you back. I hate you. I love you. Fuck you. Please stop this. Are you taking your meds? Why are you doing this? Is it over yet?_ But he isn’t weak anymore, right? He’s done being Ian Gallagher’s bitch, and he’s sure as hell not Ian’s “Mick” anymore.

His jaw aches from the strain it takes to hold back all the words he wants to say but will hate himself for saying all at once. He tosses the silver change Fiona gave him at the table, clattering in a small symphony against the fork and coffee cup.

“Is good to see Carrot Boy again, no?” Svetlana prods, and something burns Mickey’s eyes. Because there’s this sudden relief stretching itself across his heart, this simple validation that comes from knowing Ian’s still here, he’s alive and in one piece. A fear Mickey’s been doing all he could to hold back finally relaxes. But it’s replaced, in a crashing wave, by the most certain rage Mickey’s felt in years. Because here Ian is, he’s fine, he’s alive and in one piece, and how fucking _dare he_ be put together without him?

“It’s good to see you,” Ian says quietly again, and Mickey can’t tell if he means it or not, because his voice is just as flat as it was when he told Mickey he didn’t know him and he didn’t want him.

It isn’t _good_ to see Ian. It’s messy and horrible and it makes Mickey want to die a little bit because he wants it to be so wonderful and better, but all it does it make him lonely.

So he walks away without a word, without his coat, without his dignity. Shaking from the cold, and maybe his nerves, he buys a fifth of whiskey across the street and huddles in the alleyway to drink half of it down before he has the courage to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So I know I haven't updated Swear This One You'll Save in a hot minute...I haven't abandoned it, but the events of Season 5 kind of left me in a weird place with my feelings about it, so until then I wanted to right this story to start to fix some of the mess these boys are in!


	2. Yesterday is Dead and Gone

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

**Chapter Two – Yesterday is Dead and Gone**

 

The first day Ian steps out of the kitchen to clear plates and sees Svetlana, rolling Yevgeny’s stroller back and forth with her bare foot at the bar, holding her fork between her teeth as she flips a page in her magazine, he turns immediately around and busies himself rewashing the morning’s dishes.

She comes back the very next day, and Ian’s bussing a table when he sees her, so he ends up walking around the building outside in the cold and coming back in through the kitchen door to avoid her seeing him. But ten minutes later, Sean orders him out onto the floor to clean up some spill on the bar. And of course, the spill is Yevgeny’s fault, whose splashing his hands in a puddle of milk that’s dripping onto the floor at Svetlana’s feet.

Ian stops in the doorway, the swinging door to the kitchen smacking against his back. Svetlana glances up at him, sucking on her finger. “Mickey tells me you are sick. Like cancer.” It’s not exactly the sort of greeting Ian had expected.

Ian wonders, if he leans back into the kitchen and turns away, if he can just pretend this isn’t happening. He isn’t interested in talking about Mickey, especially with Svetlana. He walks forward, setting the bucket of soapy water down and dropping the rag into the milk puddle. “That’s what Mickey thinks,” he replies, not making eye contact. The name sounds different in his mouth now, and Ian feels wrong for talking about him.

“You are not sick?”

Ian glances up at her, for just a second. She’s watching him carefully, her fingers splayed across Yevgeny’s chest. “Nope,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, then he looks back down, skirting the rag around Yevgeny’s fingers.

“Mickey say you take baby because you are sick. Say I do not call cops, because mind cancer make you take baby. Now you tell me you are not sick. Mickey lie to keep you out of prison?”

He hasn’t spoken with Svetlana since before he and Yevgeny tried to go to Disney World. He’s seen her, hanging clothes in Kev and V’s backyard, wearing the twins on the front and the back of her and holding Yevgeny against her hip. “He didn’t lie,” Ian admits. He isn’t sure if the flare of anger he feels toward Svetlana just then is because he seems ready to get him hauled off to jail, or because he called Mickey a liar. But surely it’s the first part, the part where Ian didn’t really _do_ anything, and here she is trying to make this a problem. “Just…he doesn’t understand.”

“What is to understand about taking my Yevgeny?”

Ian knows, somewhere inside himself, that he should apologize to her. He hadn’t meant to worry her, and he knows he did. But he feels bitter, because he’s tired of feeling like he has to apologize to people for not being enough. He holds her gaze then, not blinking. “I mean, something’s wrong with me. But I’m not sick. It’s just…different, then you or Mickey or Yevgeny. People don’t get it, but it’s not me being sick.”

Svetlana presses her lips together, blinking at him. “So if you are not sick…then there is no cure? You are different now, forever?”

He feels an unexpected swell of appreciation in his chest for Svetlana, who so simply accepts his words. He’s raged against Mickey for weeks, begging him to understand he’s not sick…and Svetlana just believes him, immediately. “There’s meds I can take. But they make me…I don’t like them. So no, not really. It’s not really something that needs to be fixed anyway.”

“Why would you take medicine if you are not sick?”

Ian laughs, bending down to wring the rag out in the soapy water. “I don’t really know. It’s what Mickey wants me to do.”

It’s more accurate to say Mickey _wanted_ him to do it, he catches himself thinking as he gets back to wiping up the milk. Because truth be told, he hasn’t spoken to Mickey in ten days, and he doesn’t really know what Mickey wants anymore.

“Mickey always think drugs are answer, no?” She smirks, though Ian doesn’t necessarily think her assessment is all that funny. “I am not so sure.”

Ian could leave now, if he wanted. The milk is mostly gone now, and the water will dry down in a few seconds. He doesn’t have to keep talking. But he opens his mouth anyway. “Yeah? What do you think the answer is?”

Svetlana swipes her thumb over the corner of her mouth, watching Ian thoughtfully. “Will what is wrong make you steal my Yevgeny again?”

“Never,” Ian says automatically. Part of him worries that this isn’t the truth, but the other part of his repeats that he didn’t really _steal_ Yevgeny in the first place.

“Then I say you worry too much. Americans, you always want to ‘fix’ things.” She says the word as if it’s disgusting, her nose wrinkling. “Something is wrong because it is not like you, it is only right if it is like you. I say it does not have to be this way. You can be different. If you no hurt anyone – if Yevgeny is safe – I do not mind.”

Ian watches her for a moment, feeling surprised by how simply she is able to accept him. Not since Monica has _anyone_ been so immediately okay with Ian just being who he was. For a wild, brief moment, Ian felt like launching himself around the bar and wrapping Svetlana in a hug.

Instead, he nodded, and told her ‘thank you’ in Russian. She smiled at him then, holding out a finger for Yevgeny to grasp. “You are getting better,” she remarked and then repeated the phrase in Russian.

She visited Ian often, but it took six visits before she let him hold Yevgeny. She stayed till he was off his shift, and then grabbed his arm as he walked past. He settled in across the booth from her, and was surprised when she stood up and moved around the table to sit beside him, settling the baby in his lap. “We stay right here,” she said sternly. “I watch every minute.”

Ian held Yevgeny stiffly at first, his fingers numb and awkward, certain he was going to have him snatched away. But as the minutes went on, his muscles loosened and he found himself cradling Yevgeny to his chest. Yev grabbed the front of his stained t-shirt with one hand, blinking slowly as he tried not to fall asleep.

It was more kindness than he’d ever dared hope for from Svetlana, for her to trust him enough to hold Yevgeny again. She kept one hand on Yevgeny’s little chubby ankle, but still, it was more than Ian had allowed himself to hope for.

“Mickey tell me that I come home now,” she says through the silence, startling Ian.

“Oh.” He wants to say more, to appear even the slightest bit more intelligent than he does at this moment, but he can’t find anything more.

“I tell him I do not come. Say I do not want to be in home where baby gets taken away. I cannot watch always.”

It stings, but Svetlana says the words so matter of fact that Ian knows she’s not meaning to be insulting. “I’m not hanging out there anymore,” he mumbles, and his grip on Yevgeny’s back tenses.

“This he tells me,” she says, and Ian can feel her eyes burning into his temple. “But I am not so stupid. You will go back, and so I will stay where Rub n Tug was. Maybe you visit me? Pie is expensive so often.”

Ian blinks. He’s not going back. He and Mickey are done. Mickey seems to understand that – he hasn’t called, hasn’t come by, hasn’t even _tried_. Why doesn’t Svetlana see that? “You don’t have to stay away from Mickey because of me. We’re done.”

Svetlana slides her arm between Yevgeny and Ian then, and she’s settling a now sleeping child against her chest before Ian has time to register that he should say goodbye. “Is done for now,” she says, but Ian’s not sure if she means his time with Yevgeny or with Mickey. “But things, they change, no? You change, Mickey change, maybe you both change again. Does not have to be what it was, but maybe is nothing forever, right?”

Ian makes some sort of excuse to leave. He doesn’t remember what he says, maybe something about Liam? But the words spill out of his mouth as he slides out of the booth, and he’s halfway out the door before the feeling hits him. _Hope._ Her words gave him hope – tiny, and irrelevant, and gone by the time he gets home – but for just that short walk, Ian Gallagher has hope that maybe they can both be someone worth loving again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS...I am BLOWN AWAY by all the support I got in the last chapter! You are all amazing, and it is so great to see that so many of you needed this fic just as bad as I did. Stay tuned...hope you liked this peek into Ian's perspective just shortly after D-Day!


	3. Wanna Put My Hands Through You

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

**Chapter Three – Wanna Put My Hands Through You**

Mickey’s got his shirt halfway over his head when Cupcake says, “I’ll go with you.” His name’s not really Cupcake, of course. He told Mickey his name, the second or third time they were together, but Mickey was high at the time and didn’t remember it in the morning. Not that it mattered.

He tugs the fabric down, casting one eye over the top to study the man lying in the bed, the sheets rumpled around his waist. “Where?” Mickey asks, blankly.

“The…Alimony? Is that what that place’s called?”

Mickey rolls his eyes as he settles the hem of his shirt around his waist. “It’s the Alibi, and fuck no you’re not _going_ with me. What you think this is, anyway?”

Cupcake doesn’t answer right away, fumbling on the bedside table for Mickey’s lighter. Growing frustrated, Mickey leans forward and grabs the lighter that is just out of Cupcake’s reach, tossing it at him and picking up his half-finished beer.

“You think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend here?” Mickey challenges, his lips against the rim of the can.

They aren’t – boyfriend and girlfriend, that is. They hang out, if you can call blow jobs and fucking and two hand jobs at the park hanging out. Mickey doesn’t tend to think of it that way – this is just something that happens now, between him and this guy who doesn’t even have a real name.

Cupcake lights his cigarette, puffing the smoke out from between his lips in little clouds, still ignoring Mickey’s question.

“Shit, that’s what you think, I’ll keep my fifty next time and you can suck me off for free.” Cupcake glances at him then, just for a second, an edge to his expression like he’s daring Mickey to challenge him again. He doesn’t like when Mickey references the money, for whatever reason. He usually waits to get paid till just before he leaves, as if he’s tempting Mickey just to fuck off and stiff him one of these times. Not that he’s ever tried to – it may not be the most honest of ways to make a living, but it’s still a _way_ to make a living, and Mickey can kind of respect that.

“Keep that shit up, I’ll up it to seventy-five, see how you like that.” He’s annoying, most of the time, when Mickey actually bothers to have some sort of conversation with him afterward. He’s arrogant and pushy and always wanting to know about the _next time_ , which pisses Mickey off.

“Your shit ain’t that great, Cupcake,” Mickey mutters, carding his fingers through his hair. “You’re nothing but a warm mouth – there are a million others out there in the world.” He keeps his gaze steady on Cupcake as he says it, though he isn’t sure what expression he’s looking for. Anger? Hurt? Sadness?

But Cupcake just smirks, and the expression, so unlike the one Mickey had seen before, in some other life of his he doesn’t let himself think about anymore, boils his blood. “See yourself out when you’re done lounging like you’re at the fucking cabana, would you?” He reaches into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a wad of money to cover the night, which he tosses onto his side of the bed.

He’s nearly out the door when he stops himself, glancing over his shoulder. It’s been bugging him ever since Cupcake showed up that night, a streak of bleach blonde hair sticking straight up in middle of his stupid fucking flaming red hair. Like he’d needed to fucking change it in the first place. “By the way, that… _shit_ you did to your hair?” Mickey waves his hand in front of his hair. “Makes you look like a fucking bitch.”

 

* * *

 

 

He’s six shots deep, one hand curled around his glass and the other holding the bar, when the door opens and Kev looks past him, over his head, a range of emotions shifting rapidly across his face. “Oh, hey, Ian.” He says his name a little too loudly, sparing just a second to glance down at Mickey, who keeps his eyes trained, unblinking, on the dish rag in Kev’s hand. “What’s up? Everything okay at home?”

If Ian recognizes Mickey by the back of his head, he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Great.” The words burn at something in the back of Mickey’s brain, and he considers turning around right then and there and barreling past Ian out into the cold. “I mean…as great as it ever is, I suppose. Lana here?”

“Right upstairs. You know the way.”

It isn’t until Kev moves closer, the rag blurring in Mickey’s view, that he realizes Ian’s already gone. “You good, man?”

He isn’t. There’s something screaming inside of him, and if he didn’t know better he’d swear he was on fire. Had he _ever_ done this before – just sat right there, knowing Ian was in the room, and just let him walk away without even looking at him? It felt gross and awful and needy to him, this sudden desire to storm upstairs and find Ian and whoever Lan….

 _How fucking stupid._ He blamed the alcohol, the whiskey and however many beers he’d had that day, for his delay in catching on to Ian’s nickname for his wife. _His fucking wife._

“Mickey…yo, Milkovich. Sure that’s a good idea?” He’s already halfway around the bar toward the door to the stairs when Kev seems to catch on to what he’s doing. “You really want to do that?” His voices trails off, higher pitched and sarcastic. “I mean, of course, why would you listen to me? I’m not here. Just go right on upstairs, make a big old scene, that’ll go really well. I’m so happy for you.”

The door to the little apartment upstairs is closed, but as Mickey lays his shoulder into it, he finds it not locked. Svetlana and Ian are sitting across from each other on the bed, a garbage bag between them on the floor and Yevgeny curled up, asleep, in a pile of pillows behind Svetlana.

“Mick.” He’s not sure if Ian says it, or if Mickey just imagines it. He keeps his eyes focused on Svetlana, bleary and wetter than he remembers.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” he demands of the Russian.

She stands, slowly, one hand behind her back outstretched toward the baby. “You are drunk.”

Mickey snorts. “Well hell, with brains like that, I’m sure you would’ve been a fucking rocket scientist if your daddy hadn’t shipped you off to the hooker farm.”

Her eyes narrow. “You should not be around baby. Go home. Be sober.”

Her words draw his attention back to the matter at hand, and he points a finger in Ian’s general direction, though he won’t look to verify he’s found his mark. “ _I_ shouldn’t be around the baby? _Me_? You’re fucking serious? You’re sitting here with the guy who fucking _kidnapped_ your child, and you’re worried about _me_?”

His voice gets louder and louder, until Yevgeny stirs, whimpering. Ian’s head darts into Mickey’s line of sight as he reaches forward, scooping the baby up.

“Put him the fuck down. Now.”

“Mickey –“ Svetlana glares at him, but turns slightly to take Yevgeny from Ian’s outstretched arms.

“I’m not…Mickey, I’m not going to hurt him. Fiona just wanted me to bring some of Liam’s stuff by…”

“Shut the fuck up.” His head is pounding, or maybe it’s his heart…but then again, maybe there’s some ticking time bomb in his chest and it’s finally about to blow. Maybe he finally won’t have to do this anymore. He doesn’t want to know who Ian Gallagher is anymore, he doesn’t want to be married to some Russian whore anymore, he doesn’t want this goddamn baby, and he doesn’t want to be here. “You stay the fuck away from my kid, you hear me? You don’t go anywhere near him again. Ever.”

“Yevgeny is my baby,” Svetlana says. “Carrot boy is good to baby. If I want Carrot Boy and Yevgeny to be friends, they will be friends.”

“He’s my fucking kid too,” Mickey snarls. “You want to fucking play, Svetlana? I will take your ass to court and I’ll make damn sure you never see him again either.”

These are mean, horrible things he’s saying. He knows it. He can tell from the way Svetlana burrows Yevgeny deeper into her chest that the words alarm her. He sees, just barely, Ian stand up beside Svetlana, but he forces himself to pretend he’s not there anymore.

“You do nothing for baby,” Svetlana says, her voice firm and angry. “I take care of baby, I love baby, you do not take my Yevgeny.”

“See if the fucking courts care. You’re not even here legally, you think the law’s on your side?”

She shouts at him then, her hand wrapped around Yevgeny’s back as if Mickey’s trying to rip him from her hands. Her words come out mostly in Russian, with “fuck” and “stupid” and “ _my_ Yevgeny” interspersed between.

Suddenly, she quiets, and Mickey sees Ian’s fingers placed calmingly on her arm. “It’s okay, Lana,” Ian says, and it takes all Mickey has inside him not to explode on Ian for the use of the nickname. As if they’re so fucking close. “I’m going to go.”

“ _He_ is asshole, you are good to baby, you help –“ Svetlana starts, her eyes wide.

“No,” Ian says, not angrily, just simply. Just that, just “no”. Mickey can’t control himself, words and emotions and all this hatred just _spewing_ out of him…and all Ian needs to say is “no”. It infuriates Mickey, because once upon a time, they came undone together, and now it’s just Mickey, miserable and disgusting all on his own.

Ian looks to Mickey then, and despite the rage building inside him, Mickey forces himself to hold the gaze. He’s tired of being the loser here, the weak one, and he wants just for this moment for Ian to see him as the person he’s tried to be. The stone cold, Southside trash Ian said was who he wanted, even though he didn’t really want Mickey at all. “I’m not here to hurt Yevgeny. Or you.” Mickey blinks hard, slamming himself shut before he can let the words in. “I just wanted to drop off those clothes. I’ll…I’ll go now.”

When Mickey opens his eyes, Ian’s crossed the room. He’s just inches away from Mickey now, his hands shoved in his pockets. He stares at Mickey’s chest, suddenly unwilling to make eye contact.

He smells the same, Mickey realizes, a smell that’s sweet and salty and suddenly breaking apart this wall Mickey’s built in his mind. He thinks, just for a moment, that he could close this distance between them, hit Ian, hard, and then maybe this could be over.

He’s been falling apart for months now, alone, and here is the one person who has the power to put him back together – but he’s the reason he ever fell apart, and this isn’t the life they were supposed to have.

“Stay the fuck away from my family,” Mickey says, and then he’s shoving Ian, his palms flat against his chest. Ian stumbles, but recovers before he falls, his eyes latching on Mickey’s in surprise.

Mickey turns and storms down the stairs. He was supposed to keep standing there, watch Ian leave and make sure Svetlana understood that Ian wasn’t welcome anymore…but his alcohol-soaked bravado is wilting rapidly in the small space between them, and he just needs to be away from it.

It’s overwhelming, how much he misses a life he never even got to have with Ian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow burn here folks, but I promise it'll be alright! This chapter was important for Ian to really see that Mickey's kind of broken apart without him...next chapter we'll see a lot of the growth Ian's made in their separation.
> 
> Thank you, again, for all of your kind words and tremendous support of this fic. I hope the pain Mickey's going through isn't too awful for you all...Ian will fix it, I promise!


	4. All the Things You've Taken

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

**Chapter Four – All the Things You’ve Taken**

“I fucking hate him!”

Ian had considered saying a lot of things to Lip when he came through the door – _how are you?, how’s school?, still banging that hot professor? –_ but as soon as the unruly mop of dirty blonde hair poked into the bedroom they still shared one weekend a month, Ian found himself bursting to share his rage with his older brother.

“Well hello to you too,” Lip says, sliding his backpack off his shoulder and tossing it onto the bottom bunk.

“He’s such a fucking asshole,” Ian continues, his hands shaking as he holds a cigarette out to Lip, an unlit one between Ian’s own lips.

“Who?” Lip takes the cigarette, and Ian tries to ignore the way his glance lingers on Ian’s expression as he pulls a lighter from his pocket.

“Mickey,” Ian replies, as if Lip should have known. The name feels different in Ian’s mouth now, and he tries not to think about how bitter it’s gotten. He takes the lighter from Lip, and they’re silent for a moment.

“Milkovich? You two fuckin’ again?”

Ian scoffs at the idea. “He said I wasn’t allowed to see Yevgeny anymore. That I was _dangerous_ and he shouldn’t be around me! The fucking _nerve_ …I’ve seen Yevgeny more in the last couple months than he has, and he’s going to keep him away from me?”

“Shit, take a breath, man.” Lip exhales a puff a smoke slowly, leaning against the brace of the top bunk. “You’re gonna have to catch me up here. Yevge…whatever his name is, that’s Mickey’s kid, right?”

“Svetlana’s,” Ian corrects, even though it’s semantics. Mickey’s never wasted a moment’s breath worrying about that child, by all rights he was Svetlana’s alone. “He said he’d take him from Svetlana if she let me see him again. As if it’s not _his_ fucking fault I ever –“

“Hey,” Lip says, quiet yet stern. “ _Is_ it his fault?”

Ian wants to continue, to tell Lip that _yes_ , it is Mickey’s fucking fault. That he’d been the one who threatened to get Ian locked up, and Ian would have never needed to take off if it wasn’t for Mickey being so goddamn pushy. That he only took Yevgeny for something fun to do, and maybe if Mickey wasn’t so desperate to control him, he would have known all about it or even gotten to go along. But he stops then, a heavy sigh escaping his lips as he considers Lip’s words.

“Okay, whatever, fuck. It’s not his fault. I should have told them where I was taking him. I should have told Svetlana, anyway. Mickey never gave a shit in the first place.”

He glances up at Lip then, and Lip, at least, seems satisfied by his response. The therapist would have pushed him further, Ian recognizes – she would have wanted to know if it’s really fair to say Mickey didn’t give a shit and that he didn’t deserve to know where Ian and his child were going. But Lip, despite being the one in the Gallagher home who’s attended the most sessions with Ian, still hasn’t totally bought in to the healthy confrontation model the therapist tries to get Ian to work with.

“I didn’t know you were involved with the Milkoviches again,” Lip remarks.

“I’m not. Svetlana comes by the diner a lot, and she brings Yevgeny with her and sometimes we talk. Today I went by where she’s staying, above the Alibi, because Fiona wanted me to give her some clothes that Liam outgrew, and of course fucking Mickey had to barge in. He can’t keep him away from me.”

“He can’t? You gonna take him again so he can’t?”

Ian’s on his feet before he recognizes any desire to move, and he’s standing in Lip’s space now, posturing over him. “I never fucking hurt that baby.”

Lip keeps his eye contact steady, gazing up at Ian. “I didn’t say you did.”

“I took care of that baby, I protected that baby, I _love_ that baby. That baby belongs with me a hell of a lot more than he does Mickey.”

Lip closes his eyes, taking in a deep breath. “But he’s _not_ your baby, Ian. He is Mickey’s baby, and that means when you do crazy shit like run away with him and don’t answer your phone, his parents – _including_ Mickey – have a right to have a problem with you being around him.”

Ian wants to say something terrible to Lip then, because Lip just called him crazy and he’s so _tired_ of that word. But any smart remark dies in his throat and he finds himself backing away from Lip and sinking onto the bed, his legs suddenly tired. “I didn’t think Svetlana was ever going to let me near him again,” he admits quietly. “But she has and now Mickey’s fucking it up and…I don’t know how to stop it.”

He can hear his therapist congratulating him and moving past the anger, identifying the real source of his fear – that he’s going to lose Yevgeny again. It doesn’t feel like a victory though. Ian feels cold and his hands are shaking now and he wants so desperately to go over to Svetlana’s right now and hold Yevgeny, just to convince himself he’s still there…but that’s the crazy talking, isn’t it?

“Did anyone even tell him you were spending time with the kid again?”

“It isn’t any of his business,” Ian retorts. “Svetlana’s the only one who takes care of him. She doesn’t need Mickey’s permission – _I_ don’t need his permission.”

Lip holds his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m not saying that. Shit – look, you know as well as I do Mickey Milkovich is that last person I’d ever bother sticking up for – but if you want to see the kid, and he doesn’t want you to see the kid, isn’t it worth talking to him about? When’s the last time you talked, anyway?”

Ian wants to say he can’t remember. Surely it’s been years now – back before the nightclubs, the military, any of it, when they were just “hanging out” – but realistically, he knows that’s not true. It was only months ago, when he stood there in front of the house yelling at Mickey for thinking “I love you” meant something when the “you” he was speaking to was gone. Not that Ian really wants to call that ‘talking’. ‘Breaking’ feels like a more accurate word – they didn’t talk, they just fell apart. “I don’t know, it’s been awhile,” is Ian’s short reply.

“He know you’re in therapy?”

Ian shakes his head. Svetlana hadn’t even know until a week or so ago, when Ian had made the mistake of starting out a sentence with “My therapist thinks –“. Her eyebrows had arched, slowly, but she’d made no comment. Ian had tried to explain it to her, but eventually she shrugged and put her hand over his. “If shrunken head means you do not hurt my Yevgeny, if shrunken head mean maybe you smile when you do not try so hard, I say your head should be teeny tiny.”

“I mean, take it for what it’s worth – and considering I don’t know much of anything about you two and I’d like to keep it that way, it’s probably not worth much…but the way I see it, you’re lucky he didn’t call the cops on your right then and there.” As Ian goes to stand again, Lip holds out his hand, halting him. “Just…shit. I get you had your reasons, or whatever, we’ve been over them a hundred times. But I was real, _real_ pissed at you for a long time. Fiona was, Debbie was…we all were.” Ian bites his lip, because this is the kind of stuff he’d rather not think about. “You ran off on us, not once, not twice, but three freaking times. You joined the military, you stole a baby – you ran off with our psycho ass mother, for crying out loud. You almost beat Debbie with a baseball bat. And I get it…actually no, I don’t get it, but I get that I don’t get it. Thing is, we’re your family, and we’re always gonna be your family, but even I thought we were one last straw away from just letting you go. That’s what Fiona told me, when you left with Monica – I wanted to look for you, but she said not to. That we needed to let you figure it out on your own or let you go.”

“What’s your point?” Ian’s throat is dry and thick, and his eyes are burning. He hates this, but he knows he deserves to hear it. Lip doesn’t talk much about the stuff he did – Lip doesn’t talk about much period, besides sex and weed and robots – so he owes him this moment of explanation.

“We’ve been through the fucking ringer as the children of Frank and Monica Gallagher, right? Whole lotta shit, and yet _we_ almost couldn’t make any more excuses for you. So how can you expect Mickey fucking Milkovich of all people to understand? But he tried, didn’t he? Where do you think you’d be right now if he hadn’t at least tried?”

Ian lets himself think, for just a moment, of the porn film he shot, when he’d had every intention of making a sequel before Mickey had flipped out on him. He thinks of the embrace they shared before Ian went into the psych ward, when he clung to Mickey’s t-shirt because the alternative was running away. He thinks of the way Mickey took the bat from him and cleared the demons from his mind, the annoying trips he took to the store to empty the vitamin racks and boss him around on his caffeine intact – which he’d been right about, not that it mattered. He thinks of the baseball field, when Mickey let him be unreasonable and cruel and still let him fuck him after anyway. He thinks of the preliminary military hearing, where Mickey had barreled his way into the chair right next to him, and bit his nails down to nubs as his fingers inched ever closer to Ian’s own on the table, dead silent as the rest of his family ripped him apart. He thinks of all the phone calls he didn’t answer, the voicemails and text messages he deleted after pretending he never saw them. He thinks of laying in the grass by the meth trailer, staring up at the stars, looking at the picture of them on his phone, and how the only reason he’d come home when he did was for Mickey. Because he needed to free him from all of this madness, because he was tired of being suffocated by feelings that were meant for someone capable of returning them. That whatever happened to him from that moment on, he needed it not to matter to Mickey anymore, because it wasn’t that Mickey wasn’t trying, it’s that he was trying too hard.

So, much as Ian hates to admit it, Lip has a point. Without Mickey, he’d be gone. Dead, probably, because what was there to live for without someone pulling him along when he couldn’t even make himself move?

“I can’t lose Yevgeny again,” Ian insists childishly, ignoring Lip’s point completely, because his eyes are burning and his hands are shaking, and he has too many thoughts to even try to address them. Yevgeny’s all he has the chance of salvaging at this point, he knows – he’s lost his future, he’s lost the image of the innocent middle child he’d had with his family…and he’s lost Mickey. All there is this baby, this one chance to maybe be a better person for the whole of someone’s life, because he’ll never remember the almost trip to Disney World. And he needs this – he needs to know he can make something one hundred percent right again.

“Then talk to him,” Lip says. “Tell him _you’re_ the one trying now. See if it makes a difference. I know you’ve got in your head you’re never gonna speak again, but is that really worth taking the chance of losing what you say you want?”

And Ian knows it isn’t. That nothing – no stubbornness, no amount of anger or fear – is worth losing Yevgeny over. So if talking to Mickey again is what is takes…then Ian’s going to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys! Sorry for the delay in updating - my classes are almost all the way wrapped up for the semester, so I've been a little nuts with papers and such, but now I'm nearly to a time where I'll have a lot more time to update for a few weeks, so I'm /hoping/ I can get ahead a little. 
> 
> Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter - I wanted to use this conversation with Lip to show some of the progress Ian's made being in therapy...but also show he's not all the way fixed or anything. He's still got a lot of mental health concerns. 
> 
> Our first real interaction between Ian and Mickey is on its way!
> 
> As always, I am ASTOUNDED by the outpouring of support for this story - you guys are amazing, and I hope I continue to do it justice!


	5. Secret Life of Lovers

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

****

**Chapter Five – Secret Life of Lovers**

 

It’s the middle of the day when Mickey wakes up, stumbling out of the bed and finding his discarded boxers from the night before on the floor. Then he’s out at the refrigerator, one hand down the waistband of his boxers while the other rifles through the age-old leftovers containers to find the whiskey he knows he stashed somewhere.

 

“Hey.”

 

He speaks so quietly, Mickey almost thinks he imagines it. When he realizes it’s real, he glances over, expecting to see Iggy. But it’s someone else, of course, because even before Mickey’s done turning, the voice lights a fire in the dark corners of his mind that he’s stopped allowing himself to look at.

 

Ian’s standing in his doorway. Ian fucking Gallagher, in his house. He’s a wearing a coat, and he’s pulling a knit hat off his head. The bruise he’d seen on Ian’s face that first time they saw each other again has faded, and Mickey notices for the first time that Ian’s hair is longer now, and styled differently than it used to be.

 

“Iggy let me in,” Ian says by way of explanation, although Mickey didn’t ask him anything. He’s blinking at Ian, rather stupidly. And he finds himself laughing, because surely he’s lost his mind now. He’s finally done enough drugs, drank enough, that he’s completely lost his mind.

 

“Is something funny?” Ian asks him then, a tinge of irritation coating his words. And Mickey laughs harder, because nothing’s funny. Nothing’s been funny in a long time. “I came here to talk to you about Yevgeny.”

 

The name sparks some distant part of Mickey’s mind that’s still sober, and the laughter dies away. “Fuck off, then,” he says. “Already told you what would happen if you go near him again.”

 

“You’re really going to be that big of an asshole, Mickey?”

 

“Never seemed to mind my asshole before now,” Mickey takes a swig of the whiskey then, the burn in his throat matching the satisfaction he feels at how red Ian’s ears get.

 

“Fuck you. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

 

“That makes two of us then.”

 

“And to think Lip actually made me think…” Ian scoffs then, but Mickey’s distracted by what he says.

 

“What? This is dear _Phillip_ ’s idea? Tell me, what’s he think you’re going to solve, coming around here?”

 

Ian’s twisting his hat in his hands, staring at the corner of the countertop behind Mickey’s back. “I don’t think it’s fair that you’re not letting me see Yevgeny. I care about him and Svetlana’s comfortable with it, and it isn’t fair that you threaten to take him away from her because she lets me see him.”

 

“The fuck do I care?” Mickey asks, squaring his shoulders in Ian’s direction. “You’re _psychotic_ , Gallagher, or did you forget about how you locked my goddamn child in a car in the middle of the summer and just took the fuck off? Just because that bitch trusts you…that’s supposed to mean something to me?”

 

“That’s not fair.” His voice is quiet, and his head is bowed further now, staring at the floor.

 

“You’re damn right, it isn’t fucking fair.” Mickey’s raising his voice now, swelling against Ian’s shrinking courage. Nothing about this is fair. Fair would be Ian and Mickey as Ian _and_ Mickey, and Yevgeny being a kid they saw together, here at _their_ home. Ian was supposed to be normal, and Mickey wasn’t supposed to be alone. He didn’t need a lecture from Ian about fair – nothing was fair anymore.

 

Ian looks up at him through his hair. “I would never hurt him.”

 

“Says the guy who almost knocked his sister out with a fuckin’ baseball bat.”

 

Ian’s hands clench tighter around his hat. Mickey wants to feel bad about what he said. He knows better – _would you kick him out if he had cancer?_ – but he’s done feeling sorry for Ian Gallagher. “T-there were reasons –“

 

“Yeah, like you not being fuckin’ medicated like you’re supposed to be.”

 

There’s something in his words that sparks Ian then, and he’s standing straighter, glaring at Mickey. “I don’t need those pills. They make me dead inside.”

 

“Better you than your entire family – everyone who gives a shit about you.”

 

“I’m not going to hurt them,” Ian insists.

 

“You don’t fucking know that!” Mickey steps forward now, closer to Ian. The air seems thinner, hazier, and Mickey just wants this to be over.

 

“Fine. I don’t know that, you’re right. But you don’t know that I _will_ hurt them. And you can’t just…you can’t just take Yevgeny away from me because you’re afraid.”

 

“I’m not fucking afraid of you,” Mickey grounds out. “Yevgeny isn’t yours, you have no business seeing him. What?” He laughs then, a memory he’d rather not think about coming to the surface. “You think you were going to be his daddy? We were going to go down to city hall, get married, and you’d adopt him? You and that bitch could just squeeze me right out of the picture?”

 

Ian’s shaking his head, his eyebrows pulled together over his big, stupid eyes. Mickey can tell, even now, after so much time apart, that Ian recognizes the words. “Mickey –“

 

“Just get the fuck out of my house, okay?”

 

But instead of moving away, going back down the hallway and disappearing, Ian comes closer. “This whole thing is getting really messed up,” Ian says then, his mouth twitching oddly. “I came here to – to tell you something and I just…it’s getting screwed up.”

 

“I don’t give a shit,” Mickey responds, folding his arms over his chest. “Get the fuck out, I’m not asking you again.”

 

“Mick, can you please just –“

 

“Don’t you _ever_ fucking call me that again. Get the fuck out of my house before _I_ get you out of my house.”

 

Ian shakes his head. “You’re really going to be so fucking stubborn you won’t even listen to me?”

 

“Don’t talk to me about stubborn, until _you’re_ standing there, fucking shitting all over yourself _begging_ me to just care – just care a little, tiny bit, and I just fucking brea - ditch your ass anyway. Then talk to me about what stubborn is.”

 

The words hang in the air for longer than Mickey likes. He hadn’t meant to say them, and now he wishes he could take them back. He’s not interested in reminding Ian of how weak he is, how much he begged and got ignored anyway. The worst day of his life isn’t one he likes to think about often.

 

There’s a silence then that is much too long for Mickey’s liking. His words are hanging in the air and choking off his oxygen and he looks up at Ian then, ready to say something, _anything_ to get his weakness out of the air. But something about Ian’s expression, as he stares past Mickey’s shoulder, makes him turn around.

 

“Could’ve told me there was going to be such a show, I would’ve gotten up earlier to make some popcorn.”

 

Given the finer details of their relationship, Mickey doesn’t usually spend time wishing Cupcake was Iggy. But now, flanked by a redhead on either side of him, Mickey would have given anything for Cupcake to be his brother instead. He’s standing there in boxers, ones that Mickey quickly recognizes as a pair of his own, and there’s no denying his secrets are as bare as that freckled, too-expensive chest.

 

“Dylan?” Ian’s voice sounds odd behind Mickey, but he won’t turn around.

 

“Long time no see, Curtis.”

 

Mickey feels like he’s been punched, and he thinks for a long moment he doesn’t even breathe. Because of course, nothing can be his. Of course, his stupid son of a bitch ex-boyfriend would know all about his new, not-boyfriend prostitute. How had he thought this was a world all his own? The dancing, the porn – it was only half a step from prostitution, wasn’t it? So here it was, all laid bare for the one person he wanted nothing more to do with – Mickey Milkovich was fucking a male prostitute and letting him sleep over all day long.

 

He finally turns to Ian then, because it might as well just be done now. He might as well just crumble apart at his feet and then maybe, finally, Ian will go and leave him to the hell of a life. And if he was stronger, if Mickey had a will left to try, he might have punched Ian for the look of pity he wears then.

 

“I didn’t realize…I just…” Ian’s stumbling over his words, and Mickey wishes it made him feel better to see him so off his game. “Iggy didn’t tell me you had company.”

 

Mickey scoffs. “Don’t generally employ my brother as my fuckin’ secretary, so I forgot to drop my schedule off with him. You done? You got what you came for?” Because it seems so obvious to Mickey now, all that mattered was his humiliation, that was all Ian had really wanted out of this. He takes a long swig of his whiskey, relishing the burn in his throat.

 

Ian blinks, slowly, and takes two steps backward before he seems to change his mind and lean forward, his hand going into his pocket. “I just…I came for Yevgeny.” Mickey shouldn’t be mad about this acknowledgement, but it hurts him all the same. “Will you take this?” He stretches his arm out as far as it can go, a white card extended outward.

 

Mickey thinks, then, that he could stand perfectly still and win for once, make Ian look like the fool until he gives up and walks away, paper still in hand. But the heat of this exposure, Cupcake still standing there, gets to Mickey, and he stalks forward, plucking the paper from his fingers without touching him.

 

He stares at the card, not recognizing the name. “The fuck is this for?”

 

Ian catches his gaze, a sad expression in his eyes that, for just one moment, makes Mickey want to care. “She’s my therapist. I just thought – maybe you can give her a call. Talk to her about it. She could tell you I’m not going to hurt Yevgeny. Just…think about it, yeah?”

 

He doesn’t wait for an answer. With one last, long look over Mickey’s shoulder, Ian turns and walks away, leaving Mickey standing all alone, the card in his hand.

 

                                                                                                         

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are...they've spoken! It wasn't very cute...but we got some big stuff out into the open. The next couple chapters we'll see how both the revelations (Ian's therapy and Mickey's new guy) impact the other. 
> 
> As always, I am absolutely BLOWN AWAY by everyone's love and support of this story. I know a lot of people were upset iwth Ian's behavior last chapter, but I appreciate how so many of you noticed that he's still got a ways to go. He will get there. It's hard for him to really look at himself and everything he's done and what it means to have to be THAT sorry...but he will get there.


	6. There's No One Else to Blame

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

**Chapter Six – There’s No One Else to Blame**

Ian and his therapist talk a lot about choices. Ian’s brain may be messed up, she tells him (though she uses better sounding words than that), but that doesn’t take away his ability to choose. They are hard choices to make, but they are still his.

And this is why, when he hears the front door open that night, he doesn’t put the gun he’s been cleaning for the last hour away. Because he’s choosing to be honest this time.

“Hey! Didn’t think anyone would still be up. Was Liam good today?”

Liam _was_ good – or at least that’s what Debbie had told Ian when he’d gotten back from Mickey’s – but Ian doesn’t answer. Instead, he clicks a piece of the gun in place, and it seems that finally catches Fiona’s full attention.

“Ia – Ian, what the _fuck_?” Fiona’s at the table in an instant, grabbing at the bullets Ian hasn’t loaded back in the gun yet. “What the fuck are you doing?” She’s instantly frantic, reaching out to touch his face, but Ian moves back, his eyes trained on the table.

“It happened again.” The words are low, hollow – broken, really.

“What happened – what are you -?”

He looks up at her then, knowing that his eyes are wet and wide and terrified. He sees a very similar expression staring back at him from his sister’s face. “Hallucination.”

Fiona doesn’t speak right away. She takes a long, deep breath in, and then sighs as she melts into the chair next to him, her hands still on Ian’s hands, her eyes never leaving his face. “Shit,” she announces. “Well…guess that means the meds again, right?”

They’d made an agreement, about four or five episodes ago – any major symptoms, and Ian would use his medication – for a while, to ‘stabilize’. He nods half-heartedly, because he doesn’t want to take them, but he knows the alternative is finding somewhere else to live, and dishwashing at Patsy’s would hardly cover the rent anywhere.

“What was it this time? MPs again? Monica’s boyfriend, like that one time?”

He knows Fiona’s trying to be helpful, but it stings to hear her recounting all of this. “Mickey, actually.” He sees her eyebrows arch in confusion, because she hasn’t known anything about Yevgeny or him seeing Mickey or the whole mess they’re in these days. “I went to see him today and I think…I think I imagined this guy being there.”

Fiona nods along, as if she understands, and then suddenly her mouth drops into a small ‘O’. “A guy…like a guy he was fucking?”

Ian looks down at their hands, letting out one small, bitter laugh. “Like a guy _everybody’s_ fucking. His name’s Dylan, I-I used to know him. He gets paid for that kind of thing.”

“Oh.” He looks at her then, and he sees a look of confusion on her face. “And why is it that you know this wasn’t real?”

“I just told you, he gets _paid_ to fuck guys. You remember Mickey ‘I’m so far in the closet I smell like moth balls’ Milkovich? He would never….”

Fiona pulls her hand away, her nails pressing into the placemat in front of her as she considers her words. He knows the face all too well – she’s got something to say that she thinks he doesn’t want to hear. “Sport, I – I get that things have been hard, especially since you and Mickey…” she trails off, her fingers twisting together in front of her. “But sometimes people move on, you know? Don’t you think it might be _possible_ that Mickey just…started to see someone else?”

Ian laughs then, and this time he does find the humor in her words. Mickey, seeing someone else. Mickey, moving on to another _guy_ of all people. “No, no, see, Mickey doesn’t do that kind of thing.” He’s standing now, and he grips the back of his chair and stares down at Fiona, imploring her to understand. “Mickey fucks girls. Mickey fucks _Angie Zago_ and nasty chicks at the Alibi and who the hell knows who else but he doesn’t – he wouldn’t…not with him. Not with any guy.”

The look she gives him then is pity, and she’s reaching up to him, leaning forward so she can cup his chin. He stiffens his jaw, but doesn’t move away. “Buddy, things are different now. You know that, don’t you?”

“Not that different. I was the _only_ …Fiona, you gotta believe me. I’m asking for your help here.” His lip is trembling, and he’s humiliated. He hates sharing these things with anyone, and now he feels like Fiona’s just mocking him, refusing to understand. It’s so hard for him – nearly impossible – to admit that he’s having these hallucinations, and he just needs her to _understand_. “Mickey wouldn’t even talk to him, okay? If you’re so sure he’d just…do that, then why didn’t they talk? He barely even acknowledged – and that was just because I looked, I looked behind him so he did too, and it wasn’t _real_.”

“Oh, Ian.” The name comes out in a teary breath, and then Fiona’s wrapping her arms around him, squeezing him tight before pulling back, her arms on his biceps and eyes locked on his. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry this scared you and I promise I’m listening. It just surprised me is all. You’ve never had nonviolent hallucinations before, so unless Mickey’s prostitute of a boyfriend started threatening to stab you to death, this is kind of a new ballgame for us. Just give me a minute to catch up.”

She’s expectant, her eyes not leaving his face, so eventually Ian nods. She releases him then, but her hand trails down and catches his as she sits back down. “So what happened? I mean, when you saw this guy at Mickey’s – did he know what you saw?”

Ian moves around his chair, sitting down heavily. “He didn’t say anything. Just kept telling me to get out.”

“Why were you there? I mean, last I knew you and Mickey weren’t exactly on the best of terms.”

“He told Svetlana I’m not allowed to see Yevgeny anymore.” Fiona nods at this statement, though he can see the flash of anger that crosses her face. She’s known about Svetlana’s visits to Patsy’s Pies for quite some time, and had taken to paying for Svetlana’s meals out of her own tip money every so often, despite Svetlana’s objections.

“Why’d he say that?”

“Said I wasn’t safe for him. He threatened to take him away from Svetlana if she let me near him again. And Lip told me if I talked to him, let him know I was seeing a therapist, he’d let me see him. But he’s so pompous, he wouldn’t even listen!” His neck feels hot and he’s angry all over again.

“Well bud…can you really blame him?”

Ian whips his head up, glaring at her. “Excuse me?”

“You know I’m on your side, I’ve always been on your side – but imagine I started knocking on Sean’s door, telling him I just wanted to spend time with Ethan. Yevgeny was a part of your life because _Mickey_ was a part of your life. And I get you had reasons, _really good_ reasons for taking some time away from Mickey…but you can’t expect him to be happy that you’re cherry picking the parts of his life that you want back.”

Ian scoffs at her, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’re defending him.”

“I’m not! I don’t think it’s right for him to say you would hurt Yevgeny, and I don’t think it’s right for him to take that baby away from his mother…but I also don’t believe for one second that Mickey means a word of that.”

“Because you know him so well?” Fiona, who Ian had barely shared his life with these last few Mickey-filled years. Fiona, who Ian didn’t speak to about Mickey, never had, but who always thought she knew best, even when she knew nothing.

Fiona shifts in her seat, clearly uncomfortable. “Apart from you, I wouldn’t guess anyone in this world knows Mickey _well_. But I’ve seen him, with you, and I don’t think for one second he’s half the bite his bark would leave you thinking he is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means Mickey’s the guy who laid next to you in bed when your medicine had you knocked out, and came flying out of the room to yell at me for almost waking you up. And then he helped me iron Carl’s pants for his sentencing, because he just wanted to keep his hands busy. I watched him worry about you, I watched him show up when no one in this house thought that he would, and most importantly, I watched him walk away from you when you told him to. That isn’t a guy that’s out to hurt you. That’s a guy that’s _hurt_ , Ian.”

Ian looks away from her, staring down at the gun. Truth be told, he’d spent all of about five seconds considering what it was like for Mickey _then_ – when things were as messed up as they were. It wasn’t anything personal – he’d barely stopped to think about how any of them had felt – Fiona, Lip, Debbie. His therapist told him that was okay, and that he had to deal with how he felt about it first, because he could take on the burden of their emotions, and he wasn’t there yet. So he didn’t know these stories, about what life had been like in the moments he still can’t remember, and he doesn’t like hearing about them.

“Mickey wants you to be afraid, because it’s easier that way. But Mickey’s had an awful lot of opportunities to ruin your life if that’s what he wanted, and I don’t think this time is that much different. I mean, fuck, Ian, you know I’m the last one to talk about doing right by someone who loves you, but maybe that makes me a bit of an expert here. He loved you, you hurt him, he’s bound to say some shitty things, but that doesn’t mean he’s really going to hurt you when you mean as much to him as you do. He’s not really going to be the most rational when it comes to you anymore.”

“Like you when Jimmy-Steve-Jack comes around?”

Fiona laughs at that, and Ian finds himself with a genuine smile on his face in response. “Right, just like that. ‘Cept you’re not even half the asshole that guy is.”

The smile fades then. “Kinda was, though. Running away like that and then coming back and dumping him and not doing anything when Sammi showed up.”

“You’ve got enough of your shit to deal with, it wasn’t your job to be there for him.”

“But I could’ve –“ Ian stops himself. He can’t recall the last time he actually defended Mickey, and it feels weird to him.

Fiona shrugs her shoulders. “Sure you could’ve, but then where would you be? What you’re dealing with is _tough_ , Ian, it’s hard on all of us. But we’re your family, and I think you know we would’ve been there anyway, no matter how bad this gets. But with Mickey – you can’t try to get better if you’re worrying about being good enough for someone else. You needed your space from him so that you could focus on you, and Mickey should understand that.”

 _I’m worried about you - I love you_. There’s this voicemail, from when Ian and Yevgeny were away, and Ian won’t ever tell anyone, but on some of his darkest nights, he’s listened to it. It isn’t often, but sometimes it provides comfort to Ian. He isn’t sure why – because he knows as well now as he ever has that this person Mickey loves is gone. And Mickey doesn’t know him now. But it’s nice to pretend, sometimes when the hallucinations are really strong or the depression is too great that he fears he’ll be swallowed up under a wave of the ocean of his own mental illness. Because no matter what he tells Mickey about not being crazy, no matter how badly he wants to be cared for as he is – there are still those days he wishes he could go back.

When he looks up at Fiona again, his eyes are wet. She pushes his hair out of his face, biting her lip to keep from asking him the questions he knows she’s dying to ask. “Fiona –“ the word comes out in a shaky gasp “-why would I imagine somebody being there with Mickey? What’s the point of that?”

She closes her eyes, and he sees a small tear slide down her left cheek. “Sweetheart, I can’t give you the answer to that question. But all I can say…every time before, it’s something you’ve been afraid of. The MPs, Monica’s boyfriend, Liam bein’ hurt, that time you almost took off to find Mandy? All that stuff – you were scared. So I think you know why you imagined that, Ian.”

Ian starts to laugh, because the idea of Ian being _afraid_ of Mickey being with someone else seems absolutely insane. But his laugh turns into a cough as he chokes on it.

He thinks, then, of the momentarily relief he felt that day he woke up in Mickey’s room, after Mickey carried him back from the Fairy Tail. He thinks of the quiet pain that disappeared the night Mickey apologized for being late and curled around him in bed, cradling his face and being the strong one that Ian couldn’t allow himself to be. He thinks of Mickey’s arms wrapped around him before he went into the psych ward, his determination to get back to Mickey and Yevgeny _both_ when he was inside those walls. He thinks of the date they were going to go on, and the comfort he felt when Mickey visited him at the military prison. He remembers the way he stared at the couple pictures he had of Mickey on his phone in the back of a pickup truck on the way to Monica’s boyfriend, and he feels his chest rise with the remembered gratitude he felt the day he saw Mickey again at the diner, before all this fell apart.

And most of all, he remembers the devastation that wrapped around his heart when he saw Dylan standing there in Mickey’s underwear, as if the world fell away from him.

The words he speaks next come out as a whisper. He’s surprised to speak them, and even more surprised to discover how deeply he means them.

“I wanted him to wait for me. And I don’t think he’s gonna be there anymore, when I’m okay again.”

“I know, baby, I know.” Fiona’s crying now, and she scoops him toward her, arms encircling around his chest and his head and she clutches him to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooo! That was a rough chapter to write - I must admit I got a little emotional. I know a lot of you have expressed some distaste with Ian's attitude toward Mickey, and I do hope this chapter has helped shed a little light on the level of denial he's experiencing. Ian truly hasn't come to terms with the things he's done or how that's affected the people around him - and when it comes down to it, he wasn't thinking clearly when he dumped Mickey. And now he's truly seeing that he may have lost Mickey for good. I mean, their whole relationship has been back and forth, back and forth - I truly think Ian didn't necessarily think this break up was forever, and now he's faced with the reality that it might be.


	7. Inside of this Infinite Jest

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

**Chapter Seven – Inside of this Infinite Jest**

Mickey’s perched on the edge of the chair in the waiting room, elbows in his knees and hands on his chin. The cuff of his rolled up button-down digs into the crook of his elbow, and he’s jiggling his leg to keep some sort of movement in his body. If he’s too still, he’s certain he’s going to run away.

These days, sobriety is a relative term for Mickey, but he thinks the couple pills he chased down that morning with two beers almost qualifies him as stone cold sober. He got up before noon, showered, did his hair – the world should be fucking astounded, as it’s more effort than he’s put forth in ages.

“Milkovich, Mikey.” The woman behind the desk slides the glass window open, looking up at him from a clipboard.

“It’s Mickey,” he corrects as he launches up out of the chair. As if she even needed to call his name in the first place – he’s been the only one in the waiting room for forty minutes.

“Of course it is,” she says with a terse smile. “You can come around now.”

She presses a button on the desk below her, and a moment later the door clicks. Mickey pulls it open, and she directs him down the hall to the last room on the right.

He doesn’t know what he expected, but the small woman who’s sitting in a chair when he enters surprises him. She’s thin, her graying hair pulled back into a twisted knot and her lipstick obnoxiously bright. As he enters, she takes her glasses off and rests them on a notepad.

She introduces herself, standing to offer her hand to Mickey, but he side steps her, sitting down on the couch across from her.

“I need to know about Gallagher.” Her hands still outstretched to him, and her eyebrow raises. “Ian Gallagher. He’s a patient of yours, or whatever.”

She sits before she addresses him, settling her notepad back on her laps and fingering her glasses. “Mister…I’m sorry, I don’t seem to have your name here.”

“Name’s Mickey. But like I just fuckin’ said, I’m here to talk about Ian. That’s the only name you need to worry about.”

She almost starts to smile, but straightens out her expression immediately. “Mickey, it’s very nice to meet you, and I want to thank you for coming to see us today. I understand you like to talk about Mr. Gallagher, but I’m curious, have you ever been to a mental health professional before?”

“I look like I belong in the fucking nut house?” Mickey sighs then, frustrated. “Look, shit - Ian. I’m here to talk about Ian.”

“And we can talk about your friend Ian,” she says, slowly. “But I cannot tell you if your friend has ever been a patient of mine. If he has, I’m certainly not allowed to share with you anything we might have discussed.”

Mickey stands up. “Oh fuck this,” he fumes. “That’s your line, is it? I’ve got a damn maniac who wants to come around _my_ kid, and you’re just going to tell me I don’t get to know if he’s even safe?”

“Mickey, I need you to take a deep breath, alright?” Mickey’s about to tell her to fuck off, but she starts talking again. “I would like to talk to you about this. I may not be able to tell you anything about my patients, but that does not mean I can’t talk to you about the person you say you’re worried about having around your child. Why do you think this Ian might harm your child?”

It’d be simple to just walk out the door, Mickey realizes. This was a mistake, he shouldn’t have come here. Whatever he thought he’d solve, taking the train across town to follow the address on the business card Ian left with him, the answers weren’t in this room. But he finds his knees softening, lowering back onto the couch. “’Cause he already fucking did. I mean…sort of. Took off with him, without telling me, and I guess he left him in the car for like half a fuckin’ hour. Drove to a whole ‘nother goddamn state to get ‘em back.”

She nods, lifts her pen, and then pauses. “May I make some notes, Mickey?” He nods, because who really cares, and she scribbles something down before speaking. “Why did Mr. Gallagher take your baby?”

 _Because he likes terrifying the shit out of me, mostly_. “I was gonna have him committed. But I’m sure you already know all about that. Bet he tells you it’s my fault.” Because that’s really the point of this whole mess, isn’t it, as far as Ian was concerned? Mickey fucked up – Mickey pushed too hard, and everything had been broken since then.

“Whatever conversations I may or may not have had with a person who may or may not be my client have no relevance here,” the woman whose name Mickey hasn’t bothered to remember tells him, smirking. “I want to hear from you. Why did you want him committed?”

“Besides the fact that he’s batshit insane?” She gives no reaction. “He wasn’t good for himself. He was gonna end up doing something fucking stupid.”

She writes something down then, and looks up at him over her glasses. “And who is Ian to you?”

“Nobody,” he answers automatically. “Not anymore.”

“But who was he to you, when you wanted him committed?”

Mickey doesn’t answer. He thinks about those times before – the police station, the front desk at the psych ward – when he’d admitted the truth he’d kept secret for so long. _Lovers. Boyfriends._ But those words sound like poison in his mind now, and it’s an identity he doesn’t want to admit he ever had. _Boyfriends_ was one thing – _ex-boyfriends_ sounded so much worse. “Just a guy I knew. Like, I don’t know, a friend or whatever. We hung out. Why’s it matter?”

“Does it matter?” She echoes back at him. “You said he’s nothing to you now. Why the change?”

“You miss when I said he stole my fucking kid? When they finally got him out of the car, he took off with him. Said fucking Jesus was trying to take him away.”

She doesn’t react, which infuriates Mickey. This is a big deal, this is something terrifying and hard to mention. But of course – she’s heard this before. Ian comes here, all the time, and he tells her these things. “So he has hallucinations?”

Mickey laughs, though it isn’t funny. “Guess that’s what they call it. He’s bipolar psychotic, or something.”

“Is this a confirmed diagnosis, or -?”

“Yes. Fucking hell. You talk to him! He gave me your card and he told me he comes here, you know perfectly well what the fuck he is.”

“We have already talked about this. If he’s given you my card and told you I see him, I don’t think I need to be responsible for sharing any of that information with you. What was it he wanted you to come here for?”

“All he cares about is the fucking kid. I won’t let him see him, and he just wants me to come – I don’t know. See that he’s fucking normal or some shit? But he’s not. They told him he has to take his meds and he won’t.” He’s talking faster now, and he can sense the tension the words create in her posture.

“Is that it, then? He has to be medicated for you to let him around the child again? For you to feel the child is safe again?”

“What the hell other choice is there?” Mickey asks, loudly. “He’s crazy, okay? He sees things and he attacks people and he hurts himself. Half the fucking time he can’t even get out of bed, okay? What about that is safe for a kid, huh?”

“I understand that you’re upset about this,” she says slowly, holding a hand up in front of her. “But I’m trying to ask you if there aren’t other methods of treatment that might help stabilize him so that he could be safe for your family again.”

Mickey stares at her. “Like what?”

“Well, it would depend greatly on his circumstances and I would not be at liberty to give you a definitive treatment plan.” Mickey rolls his eyes and goes to stand again, but she continues. “There are options, however. Some clients who experience psychosis can develop safety plans for those around them – ways to determine for themselves if they are experiencing a hallucination and a plan for how to combat the episode while keeping others safe. Some develop contingency plans – they write out documents that state that if their symptoms reach a certain intensity or duration, they will be committed for a certain period of time or begin a medication regimen. Therapy is a very powerful tool, and while it is very uncommon for psychotic features to completely diminish through cognitive behavioral treatment, the presenting symptoms can become much more controllable if the client is willing to put in the work.”

Mickey scoffs. She used a lot of words he didn’t really understand, but he understood the gist of it. _Excuses._ Of course Ian loved being here, where this woman convinced him he could just sign his psychosis away with promises to do this or that if things got bad. He knew Ian better than that. “So basically you aren’t doing shit for him but convincing him he’s right not to need help.”

“On the contrary, I think you are being very narrow in your definition of what help is.”

“And I think you’re full of shit,” Mickey says, standing. “You obviously don’t know him at all, if you think _talking_ is going to drive the crazy out of his head.”

She stands as well, squaring her shoulders. “I am sorry you feel that way, Mickey. And I truly do hope you reconsider. _Something_ brought you here today. I know I wasn’t able to give you the answers you wanted, but maybe – if you talk with Ian, you can come with him to a session with his therapist, and maybe then you can learn a little bit more about his progress.”

Mickey’s got this tingle in his veins and all he can think about is how badly he wants to go home and use – because at least then he can forget about how horrible this has been. He wasn’t sure what possessed him, thinking he’d come here and get some sort of answers. What answers had he even wanted, to begin with?

“Fat fucking chance,” he mutters, and with that, he’s out the door.

Every part of him feels like a failure. He was so stupid, to think that this meant something. That he was somehow going to be able to find a level of peace with Ian in this fucking place – what had he even wanted to hear? What could have possibly made this better – what words could take away everything that had happened?

He pushes through the door that separates the waiting room without a word to the lady at the front desk, his head down.

“How much longer till she’s free? Can you please just tell her it’s an emergency that I speak with her as soon as poss –“

Ian stops speaking at exactly the moment that Mickey catches his eye. He’s standing at the window of the front desk, his hair wild and his face paler than Mickey remembers. He’s angled ever so slightly in Mickey’s direction, and if Mickey didn’t know any better, he’d say Ian looked afraid.

If Mickey believed in that sort of thing, he’d probably think destiny was one hell of a mother fucker. But as he didn’t, all he felt was anger. Because it didn’t seem like such a coincidence to him, for Ian Gallagher to manage to be in the waiting room of the one place he’d told Mickey only yesterday to go.

The distance between the door and the front desk can be crossed in two steps, and Mickey’s got a fistful of the front of Ian’s shirt before the woman at the desk can even react. “ _Outside_ ,” Mickey growls at Ian, his face so close to Ian’s. There’s this scent between them, sweat and that mixture of cologne fragrance Mickey recognizes as Ian’s deodorant. Neurons fire in Mickey’s brain, connections that haven’t sparked in months coming alive at the memory of this smell, in the small hours of the morning when they’d collapse, hot and sweaty, against the sheets….

“Unhand him this instant or I _will_ call the police!” Out of the corner of his eye, Mickey sees the woman start to reach for the phone, but Mickey doesn’t take his eyes of Ian’s, daring him to remain silent.

“No, you don’t need to do that,” Ian says over his shoulder, not turning his head. “I – I’m fine.”

“Let’s go. _Now_.” He’s tugging at Ian’s shirt now, but not yet moving.

“Sir, you don’t have to –“

“It’s fine, really,” Ian says, with a fake cheer to his voice. And he’s moving then, slipping out of Mickey’s grip. “No cops, okay? And actually, you can just cancel that message. Sorry for bothering you, yeah? Have a great day!”

Mickey chances a last glance at the woman at the front desk, who stares after Ian as if he’s lost his mind (the irony of which isn’t lost on Mickey), but she slides the phone back into its cradle anyway.

There’s no sound in Mickey’s head anymore. He’s staring at the back of Ian’s head as he follows him out of the building, and he vaguely recognizes the lack of thought in his head. It feels empty, a perfect reflection of the way he’s felt for months.

He waits until the door closes behind him, and as soon as he hears the click, he propels his foot forward, smashing into Ian’s back and knocking him to the ground. “You fucking asshole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR chapter for the boys on the forefront...I realize this chapter was a little slower, and different, but it was important to give Mickey a glimpse into the work Ian's been doing and see his anger as a result. Because so far he's very complacent in his issues with Ian, but not he's ready to act, and we're going to see him get real with Ian next time. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, and as always, thank you so much for all your words!


	8. The Pleasure's Pain and Fire

**_FIRE MEET GASOLINE_ **

**Chapter Eight – The Pleasure’s Pain and Fire**

The wind hits Ian’s face as soon as the door opens, and he just decides he’s going to turn around when Mickey’s fist connects with his temple.

The asphalt scrapes his cheek, his hand, and he can feel a burning along his leg as he sprawls on the ground. The air is flattened out of his lungs, and he rolls over, stars bursting in his eyes.

Mickey’s fist is still half extended into the air, his eyes directed away from Ian on the ground. And Ian thinks, just for a moment, that if he lays still enough, Mickey might just walk away. But then the anger gets the better of him, and he lifts his leg up, hooking his foot behind Mickey’s ass and yanking forward.

It’s as natural as breathing, the rhythm they fall into then. Mickey’s on top of him, and then he’s rolling them both over, pressing Mickey into the ground as they grapple with each other, punches and scratches and kicks flying between them. And then they flip again, and Ian tries to crawl away, but Mickey grabs his belt loops and pulls him back, his knees dangerously close to Ian’s groin. Ian’s forgotten how many times they’ve been in a place like this, but it’s familiar enough to start sparking parts of Ian’s brain that have been turned off for ages.

And just like that, it finishes. Mickey collapses against the brick wall, a spot above his eye bleeding, his lip already swelling, and blood streaked all over the lower half of his face from his nose. Ian’s quite sure he looks just as bad, if not worse, and he stays where he is, back on the asphalt, clutching his throbbing left wrist to his chest.

“Hello to you too,” he says, his tone mirthless, his eyes scanning the sky for clouds.

“Oh, fuck off,” Mickey says in response. Ian turns his head to look at him, and Mickey spits blood into the patch of weeds poking up through cracks in the pavement. “Why the fuck are you here?”

If Ian hadn’t taken his meds that morning, he might have laughed. A comment like that could have been funny. But Ian’s in that spacey spot in his head, where his thoughts are dulled by the medication and the edges of his body are tingly and nearly numb. “Why are you? It’s my therapist.”

Mickey glances at him then, just for the shortest of moments, and then he’s back staring at his shoes as if he’d never acknowledged Ian’s physical presence at all. “You gave me the fucking card.”

Ian exhales heavily, drawing himself up into a sitting position. He keeps his hand over his wrist, holding it against his stomach, and he regards Mickey with interest. “So you talked to her?” Distantly, he can feel a burst of excitement at the possibility. Did he know now, how hard Ian was working? Was he going to let him see Yevgeny again?

“Don’t know that I’d call that ‘talking’ exactly. Bitch wouldn’t tell me shit. Confidentiality or some bullshit like that.”

He looks up at Ian again, and Ian tries not to look disappointed. He tries to look emotionless, aloof. Anything but the feeling of overwhelming sadness that grips at his heart as soon as Mickey stops speaking. “Oh,” is all he can manage in response.

Mickey’s eyebrows knit together, and then he’s shaking his head. “Should’ve fucking known.” He’s standing them, suddenly in a hurry. “Waste of fucking time.”

He’s three steps away before the word “wait” leaves Ian’s mouth. But he says it, and he’s sure it’s almost too quiet, but when he spins around, he finds Mickey standing stock still, his back to Ian. “Wait, okay?” His voice is louder now, more confident, and he gets onto his feet, drawing up to his full height.

There’s a silence between them that’s uncomfortably long, and Ian almost begins to wonder if Mickey’s disappeared from his own body right in front of Ian. But then he turns, slowly, and he’s staring at the middle of Ian’s chest as if he can see straight through him.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” Mickey asks then, his voice carrying over the distance between them that seems like miles.

Ian wants to say, _nothing_. He wants nothing _from_ Mickey, the words sounding to Ian as if he’s chipping away at the essence of Mickey himself, robbing him of something precious and dear. He doesn’t want to _take_ anything from Mickey, he just wants to share. How is it so hard for Mickey to understand, all he wants is for Mickey to understand, to take back his bitter refusal to let Ian near Yevgeny.

But he sees Mickey, then, with blood and bruises stretching across his face, and it occurs to him how _different_ Mickey looks. He’s pale, which he’s always been, but the yellow cast his skin has now screams of solitude and illness. There’s dark shadows under his eyes, deeper than any bruise Ian’s just given him. He wears a long sleeve shirt despite the temperature, and through a hole in the arm where the seam has split, Ian can see marks on Mickey’s arm that he knows weren’t there before. And suddenly, he does want something from Mickey.

“I want to know how you’ve been. I want to know if you’re okay.”

They make eye contact then, something icy and hard in Mickey’s glare then. “Fuck you. It isn’t any of your goddamn business _how I’ve been_.”

It’s a fair point, Ian concedes. That’s what break ups are supposed to mean, aren’t they? And for so long, Ian’s been fine with it. He hasn’t needed to know how Mickey’s been, he hasn’t even _wanted_ to know. But just like when he first saw him again at the diner, there’s this tension in the air that grips at Ian’s bones, and it suddenly feels necessary to know. So even though he’s desperate to push the point, the part of his brain dulled by the medication recognizes this as an opportunity. If he takes a breath, if he does this right, maybe he can show Mickey what the therapist wasn’t able to tell him.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” he starts, and he can tell from the way Mickey’s shoulders tense that he wasn’t expecting the change in conversation. “About coming by like that. And if I was…if I was weird, I’m sorry.”

“The fuck are you talking about, weird?”

Ian stares at his shoes then, and he thinks he won’t be able to admit it. And even just a couple weeks ago, he probably couldn’t have. “I, uhh…I saw something.” He’s scratching the back of his neck with his hand, his shoe pawing at the ground below him in nervousness. “Sometimes, things still…get a little difficult, you know, in here?” He gestures at his forehead then. “It’s why I came here, actually, to talk with her about the hallu…what happened.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mickey’s folded his arms over his chest, and he’s looking at Ian in a way he can’t describe.

“I thought I saw someone there,” Ian admits, dropping his gaze to Mickey’s worn out sneakers. “A-a guy I used to know from the club. But it’s just something that happens sometimes, and I take the meds for a while to make sure it doesn’t get worse. I don’t let it hurt anybody.” He forces himself to look at Mickey then, because its important Mickey knows Yevgeny wouldn’t be in danger. Sure, the hallucinations aren’t gone, but Ian’s spent months with the therapist coming up with these safety plans and they work.

Mickey narrows his eyes. “You’re taking your meds again?” He sounds suddenly winded, the words spilling out in a harsh breath.

“For a few days,” Ian says. “Just to make sure the hallucinations don’t get worse. Fiona helps. I take them in front of her and if I don’t, I’ve got paperwork with the therapist you met that says they can hospitalize me to stabilize things.” He feels bare, laying all these details out in front of Mickey, whose expression hasn’t softened in the least. But he knows it’s important – Mickey has to understand that things have changed. He isn’t dangerous to Yevgeny anymore.

“You’ve got to fucking be kidding me.” Mickey rubs his hands down his face, the drying blood streaking across his cheek. He opens his mouth to say something more, snaps it shut, and when he finally speaks again, Ian gets the distinct impression he’s skipped over what he was originally going to say. “And you think Cu – the guy you saw – was a hallucination?” Ian nods, once, and Mickey actually laughs. “Jesus Christ, you really have lost your damn mind.”

“Excuse me?”

“He was there, alright? He was there, you really saw him, you didn’t hallucinate shit.” Mickey looks up at the sky then, his shoulders shaking for what Ian can only assume is laughter.

Ian doesn’t know how to respond. His mind’s in overdrive now. Dylan was there, it was real, and suddenly all Ian can think about is that he was wearing Mickey’s boxers.       The same pair Ian himself had worn more times than he remembered.

The air changes then, and it’s hard for Ian to breathe. There’s desperation in his eyes when he looks at Mickey again. “You do know he’s a whore, right? A prostitute? People pay him for sex.”

Mickey laughs at him again, the sound that Ian once looked forward to now causing him pain. “Judgment from the amateur porn star? Really? That’s fucking rich.”

“Mick –“

“Fuck you.” Mickey takes a small step forward then. “What the fuck I do – what the fuck I _pay_ for or don’t – it isn’t your fucking business.”

The realization slams into Ian’s body then as if Mickey had just sacked him. _Mickey’s his customer_. “No –“

But Mickey isn’t listening anymore. He takes another step forward, his jaw clenched. “You’re a real piece of fucking work, you know that? Oh, I don’t like the medicine –“ _another step_ “- it makes me feel bad –“ _he’s only inches away now_ “-boo fucking hoo for my psycho ass brain, better fucking dump my bitch of a boyfriend so I don’t have to take them –“ _now his hands are on Ian’s chest, and he shoves hard against him_ “-but what the fuck, guess I’ll still take them anyway!”

Ian stumbles but retains his footing, and he side steps Mickey’s reach again, scrambling backward. But then Mickey’s at him again, and with another shove, he’s got Ian up against the wall. “So that’s it, right? It was just a fucking excuse? It was never about the pills, was it? _Was it_?” He slams his forearm across Ian’s chest as he repeats himself, pinning Ian against the wall. Their faces are only inches apart, and Mickey’s eyes are ablaze with a rage that Ian’s only seen directed at others before. “You piece of shit.”

They’re both panting, and Ian wants so desperately to explain to Mickey. He didn’t use the medicine as an excuse – he hates it, he hates every single second of taking these pills. But he can’t _not_ take them. Not when the alternative means hurting people, and seeing his loved ones mangled and bloody and realizing no one else knows it’s real. And that it was never just about the pills – he left Mickey for so much more than that. Because Mickey didn’t understand who Ian really was, because Mickey had waited so diligently for a boy who was never coming home…because Mickey told Ian he loved him and nothing about the person Ian was now deserved the love of the one boy whose love really meant anything at all.

“I fucking hate you,” Mickey growls at him now, and so unexpectedly, Ian feels relieved, and yet he so desperately wants to fall apart now. Because he can see, from the walls in Mickey’s eyes, that he’s really and truly done it now, and Mickey’s gone for good. It’s all he’s said he wanted for months, but Ian suddenly feels so alone.

“I’m sorry.” The word escapes his lips in a strangled choke, and Mickey jams his arm forward into Ian’s chest at the words.

“Shut up. You _shut up_.”

When he thinks of it later, Ian can’t recall who moved first. Maybe it was Mickey, maybe it was Ian, but suddenly the force of Mickey’s face against his smashes Ian’s head against the bricks. And if their fight earlier had felt familiar to Ian, kissing Mickey again is like returning his soul to his own body. Mickey’s hands are gripping either side of Ian’s face so tightly, and Ian’s own hands grip around Mickey’s back, pulling his hard against Ian’s body, as if they can meld into one body if he only applies enough pressure.

But then, Mickey’s shoving away from him, and Ian’s hands drift back to his sides as if he’d never touched Mickey at all.

Mickey’s shaking his head, his eyes wide, his thumb trailing over his lips. “You’re fucking dead to me, Gallagher,” he says, his voice no more than a whisper. “If you ever come near me again, I swear I’ll make you dead to the rest of the world too. I mean it. You stay the fuck away from me.”

And then Mickey Milkovich is gone – literally, figuratively, emotionally…gone. And Ian wants to be okay with this. Because after all, this was what he’d said he wanted. This was the price of being better than Monica. It meant letting go of the people who expected something more of you than you were capable of being. It meant doing the things you hate to keep everyone else safe, and not letting anyone stick around who doesn’t have to, because they’ll only get hurt.

And that’s all Mickey was – a hurt, wounded little bitch.

Ian wanted to be okay with it. The whole way home, he told himself he was. Hatred was nothing more than Ian had to expect from the boy who’d once so desperately clung to his phone, begging Ian to see the truth – _I’m worried about you. I love you_.

Ian wanted to be okay, because really he hadn’t lost a damn thing that day. He and Mickey were no less together than they’d been the day before, because they weren’t together at all.

But as Ian walked into the house, forcing his legs up the stairs and ignoring the greetings from Debbie and Liam on the couch, he felt the heaviness of his heart. It was too heavy to stand, and it crushed his lungs in a way that made it nearly impossible to breathe, so he collapsed into the bed, the covers pulled tight around him.

Ian wanted to be okay with losing whatever little shred of love Mickey Milkovich had for him, but he wasn’t. Because Ian loved Mickey, and no matter how hard he tried to deny it, he knew the truth now – all he wanted was to get Mickey back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo. This chapter was hard. But technically speaking, this chapter is sort of a major "crescendo" in the story, that really kind of flips things around and propels them to the next stage of things, so to speak. Because when we started, we had a truly broken Mickey, depressed over his breakup and an Ian who sort of just took it in stride and focused on the rest of his life. But after this confrontation, we'll see that flip a little bit - Ian is hurt now, and he's finally getting what he's cost himself and how naïve he'd been about everything...and Mickey's truly broken away from Ian and started to see how messed up this is for him. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. You all have kept me so inspired and grateful for this story, that I truly hope its done itself justice here. I truly love and appreciate all of you!


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